Playboy Bunnydom Adds Beefcake

October 17, 1985|By Barbara Brotman.

At first Vicki Darnell did not see how portraying Little Annie Fanny in a Playboy Club would further her career.

``I thought, `How could that lead to much?` `` she said. But now she believes that being an Annie Fanny Playboy bunny is an important career move, ``a really good steppingstone,`` a show business job with challenge and, yes, exposure.

And so Darnell, 24, of Lexington, Ky., was in the Pump Room in a strapless red sequin costume Wednesday, flipping her blond curls from side to side and saying ``Leapin` lizards!``

She was one of four new bunnies visiting Chicago to unveil the new costumes and philosophy of the Playboy Empire Club, to be opened in New York on Nov. 6 by Chicago restaurateur Richard Melman.

They were joined by a rabbit, Benjamin Lucas, 22, of Lebanon, Pa. Rabbits are Playboy`s male versions of bunnies, hired for the first time at the New York club in an effort to attract women and couples. If the rabbit concept catches on, men will be hired at the Chicago and Los Angeles Playboy Clubs, a Playboy spokesman said.

Lucas is proud to be a rabbit. A rabbit, he said, projects an image of

``someone you would like your daughter to date. We don`t want hard-core sex appeal but something more subtle. Like when you walk in, you look again.``

June Jablonski looked again when she saw Melman lead the bunnies and rabbits through his Ed Debevic`s restaurant, where they lunched. Lucas was wearing a long jacket over his costume, and Jablonski, a nurse, wanted to know just how tight his pants were.

They were not. Lucas wore silky black pajamas intended to echo Hugh Hefner`s, with a jacket that revealed an expanse of chest. There will be about six other rabbit costumes, including one with ears and a tail.

``Cute,`` Melman described it. ``I mean, when you get the right guy, it works.``

There will be 22 bunny costumes. Those displayed Wednesday included a hostess bunny, a chef bunny and a Michael Jackson bunny with ears and tail.

``I asked for a tail,`` said Kim Gregory, the Michael Jackson bunny.

``It`s different.``

The bunnies and rabbits do not feel they are being exploited. Lucas said that his interviewers were looking for ``a fabulous personality`` and talent, for some will provide the club`s entertainment.

Jodi Applegate, for instance, can blow air through her nose to make a sound like a trumpet.

``See, if a customer asked for that, we have it,`` Lucas said.

Applegate, who was wearing a black hostess-bunny bodice with astounding uplift, also swore that she can balance glassware on her cleavage.

She did not demonstrate this.

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It will be a new world for bunnies in Melman`s club. Gone are the restrictions against dating customers.

``We`re allowed to date rabbits if we want to,`` said Pam Cruz, 23, of New Haven, Conn., the chef bunny.

The hands-off policy, however, will remain. ``If a bunny or a rabbit is touched, security will be called,`` Lucas said.

And bunnies are still taught the ``dip,`` in which they place drinks on a table without bending over, ``so you don`t flash the customers,`` Cruz said.

Melman said that Hefner wanted to infuse the club with a sense of romance and fun and that bunnies enjoy having rabbits around.

Some of the bunnies were even asked to recruit rabbits. ``All you had to do was see a nice-looking guy and say, `Hey, would you like to be a rabbit?`

`` said Gregory. She described the process as extremely pleasant.

For his part, Lucas said that ``the idea of working around 50 women in silk pajamas, I think, proves that the world has some justice.``

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Muryl Adams, of Ft. Lauderdale, a diner at the Pump Room, liked the looks of the new rabbit. She had seen a couple of rabbits interviewed on TV and was favorably impressed.

``It seemed to me that they had goals, that they were going somewhere,``

she said. ``They`re all nice, clean-looking boys.``

At Ed Debevic`s, on the other hand, John Greager, a surgeon, said he thinks bunny costumes look ``absolutely absurd`` and are outdated.

``Cleavage meant more in the `50s,`` he said.

Audrey Stone, manager of a Gold Coast bar, said that if Playboy wants to lure her with gorgeous men, she is amenable.

She would be happy to attend a club, especially ``if they all look like him,`` she said, gazing at the rabbit.